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Elon Musk’s criticism of a content decision taken by Twitter Inc.’s legal team was met with a barrage of insults directed at the company’s top lawyer, Vijaya Gadde. Musk, who has 86.4 million Twitter followers and has agreed to buy the company for $44 billion, frequently uses the platform to criticize Twitter’s decisions, particularly when they involve banning accounts from contravening the platform’s rules, some of whom Musk sees as being unfairly sidelined.
On Tuesday, he criticised the company’s decision in 2020 to block a New York Post story about Hunter Biden. He described the move as “extremely inappropriate.” While he did not name Gadde, the post was in response to a post in which she was prominently mentioned.
Musk was responding to a tweet from Saagar Enjeti, the host of a political podcast, who was referencing a Politico report that Gadde burst into tears during a meeting with her staff this week.
“The top censorship advocate at Twitter, Vijaya Gadde, who famously gaslit the world on Joe Rogan’s talk show and censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, is very frustrated about the @elonmusk takeover,” Enjeti tweeted.
According to the Post story cited by Enjeti, Biden, son of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, had inappropriate connections to an executive at a Ukrainian energy firm. Twitter later reversed its decision, but only after being accused of censoring data that could have harmed a Democratic candidate.
Musk’s remark was met with a barrage of criticism from Twitter users. Some people used expletives or racist slurs to refer to Gadde’s Indian heritage, such as the word “curry” and references to India’s caste system. Others used expletives or derogatory language, accusing her of “destroying countless @Twitter accounts for speaking the truth.” Some called for her to be fired, while others advised her to leave on her own. Some of the exploitative tweets were later removed after they were found to be in violation of Twitter policies.
Musk has frequently stated that his goal is to make the social media platform a haven for free speech. “By ‘free speech,’ I simply mean that which conforms to the law,” he wrote in a tweet on Tuesday. “I am opposed to censorship that goes beyond the law.” In some cases, his comments prompt his large following to publicly mock those he has criticised, ranging from a local health official early in the flu epidemic to current Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.
